Who Should Study Music and Why?

Japanese educator Shinichi Suzuki (pictured left) believed the study of music helped promote the development of good moral character. Photo by Nimajs (Wikimedia Commons)

Most parents understand that it is a good thing for even very
little children to study music, and for all sorts of reasons besides one day
becoming a professional musician.

Dalcroze Eurhythmics was developed early in the 20th century by Swiss musician and educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950), teaching concepts of rhythm, structure, and musical expression, using movement. It focuses on allowing the student to gain physical awareness and the experience of music through training that takes place through all of the senses, particularly the kinesthetic.

The Suzuki Method dates from the middle of the 20th century,
founded by Japanese violinist and teacher Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998). The
method aims to create an environment for learning music which parallels the
linguistic environment of acquiring a native language, an environment which
Suzuki believed would also help to foster good moral character.

El Sistema, developed first in Venezuela by José Antonio Abreu (1939-2018), aims to use orchestral training as a means for keeping young people off the streets in a dangerous environment, focusing their attention on academic studies and music making.

When it comes to studying music in middle and high school, we
focus on skills in brass and woodwind playing as part of the necessary
accompaniment that goes with a football game. The study of woodwind instruments
often leads to the ambition of earning a paying position in one of our major
orchestras, though the proportions of people who study woodwind, brass, and
string instruments versus the number of actual positions available in an
orchestra greatly favor the string players.

In order to prepare students for work in an orchestra, we teach them
how to play in large ensembles without asking questions that take rehearsal
time. In a country whose companies are organized hierarchically, this skill has
practical applications outside of music, but is it a skill we ought to be
prioritizing? In small ensembles, musical success depends on the ability of
those participating to create musical meaning as the result of human debate and
compromise.

As U.S. orchestras struggle financially and competition among players
continues to increase, the responsible thing to do as music educators is to
shift our priorities to areas such as keyboard playing, critical thinking, and
entrepreneurial skills. Towards that aim, we might focus music history courses
less on composers and more on the history of musical institutions. These topics
would help prepare music students for the more economically feasible, yet still
artistically viable, world of performance in smaller ensembles.

In other words, our curricula need to start fostering the
development of better-rounded musicians. Since the time of our Civil War we
have been content with isolating different kinds of music making largely into
the hands of different sets of musicians, isolating such to performances in
different kinds of performance venues. We should remember that J.S. Bach was
not simply a composer but the best organist of his day, the organizer of music
making in his community, a string player, a conductor, an examiner of organs, a
school teacher, and the father of 20 children.

Only in the past quarter century have we begun to let different kinds of music and music-making influence each other again. Try sometime on YouTube to decide whether the following three works of William Bolcom are “serious” or “popular:” his chorale prelude for organ “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” his virtuoso piano rag The Serpent’s Kiss, or any of his Cabaret Songs. In all these works the composer succeeds brilliantly in doing away with the stylistic considerations that used to separate different styles of music into completely different worlds.

William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs demonstrate a boundary-crossing curiosity that is increasingly common among today’s most successful musicians.

Who should study music, then? In today’s landscape, the most
successful professional musicians tend to be ones who, like Bolcom, are
flexible, entrepreneurial, and curious. They are able to lead the church choir
on Sunday, play the lounge gig on Saturday night, and present their percussion ensemble
in small concert halls from time to time, all while maintaining a studio
dedicated to teaching nonprofessional enthusiasts.

Speaking of those enthusiasts, they are key to nurturing a
musical economy that sees essential revenue flowing in from outside sources
since they are likely not only to attend more performances themselves but also
to bring friends and family into the concertgoing fold, exponentially expanding
the market. Really, it is anyone who finds (s)he has a positive reaction to
music and the experience of playing it who should study it as a hobby.

Why, then, should the enthusiast set time aside time for
continued musical study? The already-mentioned extramusical benefits of honing
the senses, developing a good moral sense, and keeping busy at a creative and
positive activity are all compelling reasons; but music’s intrinsic power to challenge
the mind and lift the soul are reason enough on their own. As music educators, we
are tasked with being champions of both sorts of benefits to musical study, not
just for the next aspiring orchestral clarinetist but also for hobbyists at all
levels.

What do you think? What benefits has musical study brought you (or people you know) in the non-musical world? I invite you to engage in the comments section below.

Robert Freeman is ArtsInteractive’s senior educational liaison and the author of the acclaimed The Crisis of Classical Music in America (2014). As a dean (now retired), he directed three of the nation’s leading music schools: the Eastman School of Music (1972-96), New England Conservatory (1996-99), and the College of Fine Arts of the University of Texas at Austin (1999-2006).